- Tuesday, March 11, 2025
The red glow lasted from 1 am till 3:30 local time am according to an engineer,
By: indiaweekly.biz Staff
PARTS of Ladakh witnessed a rare astronomical sight when its night sky was illuminated with a red glow caused by the strong solar magnetic storms launched toward Earth on Saturday (11).
Solar storms or coronal mass ejections caused a red arc event at the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve in the upper Himalayan region, located in the remote Hanle village which falls in the Changthang Wildlife sanctuary in Ladakh.
Scientists at the Centre of Excellence in Space Sciences in India (CESSI) in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata said the solar storms or coronal mass ejections are from the AR13664 region of the sun that has produced several high energy solar flares, some of which are travelling towards the Earth at a speed of 800 km/s.
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In the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere, spectacular auroras or northern lights shone brightly through the skies.
Soon pictures and short videos of the dancing lights posted by astrophiles and skywatchers from Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark and Poland flooded the social media.
Ladakh, the remote mountainous region of India, was blessed with a rare red glow on the northwest horizon as captured and sighted by the astronomers at the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve from about 1 am on Saturday till early dawn.
An engineer at the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, Stanzin Norla gave an account of the event to PTI, “We were fortunate to witness Aurora activities on our all-sky camera during regular telescope observations.”
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A faint red glow was visible to the naked eye along the horizon and the event was captured in much detail by a DSLR camera installed at the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, he said.
The red glow lasted from 1 am till 3:30 local time am according to the engineer, who also pointed out that with time the skies changed colours – the red along the horizon turned into a pinkish hue later.
Dorje Angchuk, an engineer at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, described the event as a stable auroral red arc, a rare occurrence over the skies at Ladakh.
(with PTI inputs)
